Ing the Bible
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
The LUTHERAN CLARION Lutheran Concerns Association March 2015 149 Glenview Drive, New Kensington, PA 15068-4921 Volume 7, Issue 4 420). When he first undertook his work with respect to the Controversy Over Translat- biblical text in response to a request from the Bishop of ing the Bible (from Jerome Rome, Jerome anticipated the criticism that would follow, 1 describing his task as “both perilous and presumptuous.” to the Present), Part I “Is there a man, learned or unlearned,” he predicted, “who Rev. Dr. Cameron Alexander MacKenzie presented the following paper will not, when he takes the volume into his hands, and per- on January 19, 2015, at the 2015 LCA Conference in Fort Wayne, In- ceives that what he reads does not suit his settled tastes, diana. Part II will be printed in the May 2015 issue of The Lutheran break out immediately into violent language, and call me a Clarion. forger and a profane person for having the audacity to add anything to the ancient books, or to make any changes or As long as people take the Bible seriously, they are going corrections therein?” 2 As it turned out, it wasn’t just violent to translate it. And as long as people take the Bible seri- “language” that characterized the response, it was actual ously, they are going to argue about translations! Not violence. many people worry about translations of Homer, Victor Hu- go, or Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Experts may complain but Jerome began his work with the biblical text as a reviser of nobody riots or burns a book in church. But the former the gospels in the Latin New Testament but when he happened in the 5th century and the latter in the 20th when turned to the Old Testament, he the translation involved was the Bible. Although clearly a “...people eventually decided to start over long way from our Lord’s “new commandment” that His equated an and translate afresh from the He- disciples love one another, it is nonetheless a mark of reli- alteration of brew. But why? He was convinced gious vitality – if not of charity – that Christians care that the underlying text that previ- the text ous translators had used was inac- enough about the Bible to denounce translations and trans- with an at- lators who do not render the Word of God faithfully or, at curate. They had used the Greek least, so they think. Whether we are talking about Je- tack upon Septuagint – a translation of the rome’s Vulgate or the NIV 2011, the first appearance of the Word.“ Old Testament, prepared before these versions created controversy. The same has been the coming of Christ but routinely used by the first missionaries of the Christian faith through- true with respect to many versions in between. The story of 3 translating the Bible is also the story of controversy in the out the Greco-Roman world. It became the Bible of the Church. early Church and therefore the basis for translations into the Latin and other languages. So Jerome was rejecting a Obviously, we are not going to recount the entire history of deeply held tradition – and there were consequences. 4 translation controversies this morning, but we can take a look at a few episodes over the course of Christian history No less a figure than St. Augustine (354-430) informed 5 that illustrate the challenges that are intrinsic to Bible trans- Jerome about a riot (tantus tumultus) that broke out in lating. The issues include things like text, style, and theolo- Oea (Tripoli) regarding Jerome’s new rendering of Jonah’s gy but the common thread is the challenge to tradition, plant – the one that grew up and withered at the end of the what people are used to, and the underlying suspicion is Jonah story (Jonah 4:6-1). Previous Latin versions had 6 that changes in “the book” are indicative of changes in the called it a “gourd,” Jerome called it “ivy.” Augustine did faith. When Christians produce a version of the Scriptures not discuss the vocables but did raise a critical point that that sooner or later becomes widely used and accepted, explained the actions of the people. Jerome’s word choice, people naturally assume that that version of the sacred text he asserted, was “very different…from that which had been is the Bible. Thus, the Old Latin is the Bible in the 4th cen- of old familiar to the senses and memory of all the worship- tury; the Vulgate is the Bible in the 16th; and the King pers, and had been chanted for so many generations in the James Version is the Bible in the 19th. So subsequent translators look like innovators who are departing from the In this Issue of Word of God. The Lutheran Clarion Controversy Over Translating the Bible, Part I..........1 Jerome and Augustine Open Letter to the LCMS................................... .........3 This situation arose already in the days of St. Jerome (347- Encouragement for a New Year..................................7 The Lutheran Clarion - Volume 7, Issue 4 – March 2015 Page 2 church.” This was an early case of the translation tradi- bothered Augustine. In discussing the fact that in Jo- tionalism that I described above: people equated an alter- nah 3:4, the Hebrew referred to 40 days of repentance for ation of the text with an attack upon the Word. So what Ninevah but the Septuagint only three, Augustine offered did the poor bishop of Oea do? After consulting with the this advice, “The Seventy, interpreting long afterward, Jews about the accuracy of the Greek version underlying could say what was different and yet pertinent to the mat- the Old Latin, he reverted to the familiar wording “as he ter, and agree in the self-same meaning, although under a desired not to be left without a congregation – a calamity different signification.” The details of each text mattered which he narrowly escaped.” 7 far less than the spiritual meaning to be derived from It is important to note that Augustine did not direct his criti- them. Therefore, the reader should “raise himself above cism of Jerome’s work at the accuracy of his the history, and search for those things which the history translation but at the text he was translating. itself was written to set forth.” In this par- Concerns like this one regarding the underly- “Not even outright ticular case, Augustine urged readers to understand Jonah’s appeal for repent- ing text of a new translation regularly recur in contradictions be- translation traditionalism. In this case, Jerome ance in Ninevah as a New Testament tween the two ver- appeal to the Gentiles, “In the forty days was innovating by returning to the Hebrew as sions [Hebrew and the basis for a Latin Old Testament but Au- seek Him in whom thou mayest also find gustine was arguing on behalf of the Greek Septuagint] bothered three days – the one thou wilt find in His Septuagint. “The latter,” he maintained, “has Augustine. … ascension, the other in His resurrection.” no mean authority, seeing that it has obtained “Both pointed to Therefore, at the level of theological so wide circulation, and was the one which meaning, the two versions were in harmo- Christ. That was the ny: Both pointed to Christ. That was the the apostles used.” From Augustine’s stand- important thing.” point, Jerome would do the Church a greater important thing. Far from hindering this favor by correcting the Old Latin by the Greek message, differences between the two, rightly understood, complemented and reinforced the rather than by continuing to translate afresh from the He- 11 brew. If Jerome persisted in his project, Augustine could same Christian truth. foresee divisions between East and West, each now with As it turned out, neither church father convinced the other, its own Bible, as well as local disputes that could not read- nor did the Church as a whole either through councils or ily be resolved, given the paucity of Hebrew scholarship in popes decide between the two. Over the course of dec- the Christian world. Better to stick with the traditional ades – centuries even – Jerome’s Old Testament became text. 8 the accepted text in the Vulgate but the books not present in the Hebrew Bible, books therefore named by Jerome Some years later, when he addressed the same subject in 12 his City of God, Augustine took a slightly different tack but “apocrypha [apocrifa]” also remained a part of the Vul- was no less dedicated to the Septuagint. Basically, he gate. In other words, the medieval Old Testament consist- viewed it as an inspired translation. Acknowledging now ed of Augustine’s canon but included Jerome’s text. that the apostles had cited both Hebrew and Septuagint The Reformation Era texts, Augustine understood this as evidence that “the one Although these two church fathers disagreed over the text and the self-same Spirit” had spoken in both. 9 There of the Bible, they were in agreement theologically, for ex- were other translations of the Old Testament into Greek ample, in their opposition to Pelagianism. But when we besides the Septuagint but, he argued, “the Church has consider Bible translating in the era of the Reformation, received this Septuagint translation just as if it were the theological debate becomes the basis for controversy over only one” and “from this translation there has also been vernacular Bibles. Arguments over the relative merits of made a translation in the Latin tongue, which the Latin Bible versions addressed issues of text and style within a churches use.” In other words, the Septuagint – as well broader context of correct doctrine, and rightly so, for the as translations derived from it – was the Bible of the Chris- tian Church.